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That sobriquet, of course, is a Blue Bomber thing, and after a resounding triumph in Hamilton on Friday night got the football team into the CFL playoffs for the first time in three years, there’s lots of spare swagger to go around.

So maybe the Jets can join in as this Manitoba capital gets to again feel part of the biggest hockey league in the world on Sunday when the Montreal Canadiens come to town and Jets 2.0, as they like to call the grand experience around here, is launched.

It’s the end of either an agonizing15-year wait since Winnipeg lost its team to Phoenix, or a tantalizing four-month wait since True North Sports and Entertainment announced the purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers on May 31.

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Either way, the longing for NHL hockey and the buildup has been intense, reaching every corner of the country, and this weekend as it hits a crescendo it has produced without question the hottest entertainment ticket in Canada. Winnipeg police laid a few scalping charges this week, with tickets being sold at upwards of 10 times their face value, and chatter has it that even Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who will be on hand, couldn’t acquire as many tickets as he requested.

That’s no surprise for a team that is basically sold out for the next five years and had to cap its season ticket waiting list at 8,000. That said, this level of passionate demand is noteworthy even in a country where the other six NHL clubs are all consistently playing to packed houses while many of their brethren south of the border scuffle along with mediocre crowds.

Back in 1996, the Jets couldn’t fill their rink or compete financially, and the alarm bells were ringing for the Oilers, Flames and Senators. The Canucks, at the turn of the century, were losing $25 million a season, while even the mighty Habs played before thousands of empty seats and couldn’t find a local buyer — or even one in the entire province of Quebec.

My, my, my, how things have changed. Many Canadians view the Return of the Jets as the righting of an old wrong, or at least a sign the NHL is coming to its senses, and while Winnipeg automatically becomes the smallest of the NHL’s 30 markets in terms of population, there appears to be little to worry about for years.

And so, Winnipeg officially joins the long list of second tries for the NHL, a list that includes Philadelphia (Quakers/Flyers), St. Louis (Eagles/Blues), Ottawa (Senators), Quebec City (Bulldogs/Nordiques), Pittsburgh (Pirates/Penguins), Atlanta (Flames/Thrashers) and Minnesota (North Stars/Wild).

With so much focus on the overall achievement of taking a team out of a failing U.S. market and plunking it down on Canadian soil, a feat that has to have encouraged folks in Quebec City, much less attention has been paid to the actual team that will take the ice against the Canadiens.

It’s a much different scenario than 1979 when the Jets joined the NHL from the WHA, but only after losing most of its Avco Cup-winning talent to the rest of the NHL in an ill-conceived merger scheme. The Jets paid $6 million, but paid even more in lost talent, which meant by the second year they only won nine games.

The current roster doesn’t boast a Bobby Hull or a Dale Hawerchuk, not yet at least, but it’s much better than an expansion lineup and, despite finishing 13th in the Eastern Conference last year, was actually a very good club in the first half.

Many of the players are the same but that’s about it, which matters. There’s a rookie GM in Kevin Cheveldayoff and a rookie coach in Claude Noel, all of which gives this team a very different feel

“I will smell the coffee. I will smell the roses,” vowed Noel at his press conference on Saturday. “Life’s too short.”

By game time on Sunday, it will have been nine days since the Jets last played in the exhibition season, and all that anticipation, excitement and built-up adrenalin — Noel organized a rowing session one day to keep the boys from being bored — could produce an eye-catching first period at the MTS Centre.

Really, it’s the most exciting moment for a Canadian NHL team since a) Montreal won the Cup in ’93 or b) Ottawa was awarded an expansion franchise in December 1990. Given that the Senators weren’t really qualified to get a franchise at that time, and given that Hamilton was screwed royally in the same process, we’ll go with the Canadiens’ Cup win as the last, biggest moment for pro hockey in Canada.

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